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In the UK, election results always seems to be portrayed as something negative, with discussion of all the bad things that could happen in the new Government's reign. This year is no exception, especially considering the slim majority held by the Conservatives.

I am a member of the Liberal Democrats, but I write this piece as a member of the left more generally. And it's really quite a simple one. Looking at the results of last week's election, we fundamentally failed and were catastrophically wrong. Parties on the left have stopped responding to the electorate, and started talking at them instead.

Changing public consensus on party beliefs can sometimes take up to a decade. Unexpectedly, there won't be another snap election for any party to test the water anytime soon. At least not until the Conservatives come down from their euphoria, giving way to the party's Eurosceptics to start causing trouble. But that'll take years...probably.

Kat is a campaigner on mental health and international development. She sits on the board for South West London St Georges Mental Health Trust and is a trustee for Results UK. She has experience in politics, youth engagement and within the charity sector.

As we reach the end of a long and rather subdued election campaign, which party gets the gold star for best performance? Much has been made of the lack of classic moments this time around. The EdStone, #Milifandom and Cameron's "career-defining" slip are all very well and good, but they won't steal a place on the list of all time election greats...

Thus far, I have remained uncharacteristically quiet about the election.
For those that don't know me, in 2010 I created a Rage-Against-the-Machine for #1 style online group designed to support the Liberal Democrats - the party who have always been closest to my own political ideologies and who were the 'underdog' at the time. If we can get Rage to #1, went my thinking, then why not try and use the same methodologies for the election? Could a huge populist movement help to shape an election?

They never tell us that the current system allows them to sit smug in their bounty of safe seats, comfortable in the knowledge that the tens of thousands of votes cast against them, will be resigned to the bin.

Predicting outcomes is something we have been doing in my business at Fear Group for 34 years, we do it to locate hot-spots in global economic activity as a background to future group investment. With this in mind I asked our in-house researchers to come up with their prediction for Thursday's General Election and here is the result...

We were out together recently, when Donald, a man in his mid-40s, showed us round a crowded studio flat with three beds in the same open space and damp on the walls. It's not politics to him, but it's politics to us - and he wants his councillors and his future MP to help. This is where politics meets reality.

No one really knows whether David Cameron or Ed Miliband will be the next British prime minister. And anyone who says they do is probably making it up. With that in mind, here are seven things everyone should understand about the campaign and election night.

It has taken a lot to get here, the heartbreak and confusion, a crisis in my being. However, I finally feel as if society is at a point to accept me for who I am, that I can look myself in the eye and say: I am who I am... I am an Ed Miliband fan.

It has taken a long time but we're nearly there. As we enter the final furlong of probably the longest election campaign in British political history, the polls still have the major protagonists neck and neck. But while uncertainty exists on whether the Conservatives or Labour will gain the most seats, there is notable polling trends on which a broad consensus has emerged.